


What do you do when you wake up in a strange basement?

by Oh_Shit_I_need_a_clever_username



Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Extended Canon, Fits with the logic of the show though so..., Fluff, M/M, Mutual Pining, No Spoilers, angsted, eventually, lets just pretend the finale didn't happen, then it just, this was supposed to be fluffy, unexplained phenomena
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-24
Updated: 2017-06-24
Packaged: 2018-11-18 06:31:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11285607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oh_Shit_I_need_a_clever_username/pseuds/Oh_Shit_I_need_a_clever_username
Summary: Dirk and Todd are in a strange basement, but something is off. Aside from being, ya know, suddenly and mysteriously kidnapped, but hey.“Dirk, don’t do this, please. I need you, you can’t leave me. You can’t. I never- I always- There’s things I meant to say- I can’t say now- Things I’ll never say if you- Just don’t. Don’t leave. Don’t leave.” Todd’s voice trailed off and he lowered his head to Dirk’s chest, sobbing quietly in despair.





	What do you do when you wake up in a strange basement?

Todd woke up with the dreadful sense that something was wrong.  
“Dirk?” He called, squeezing his eyes open and shut, trying to make them work. “Dirk?” The room came into focus, a basement of some sort. Todd had now spent months at Dirk’s detective agency, and this wasn’t all that unusual a situation to find himself in, but he couldn’t think of the case they were on, and there was no sign of Dirk.  
“Dirk!” Todd called again, starting to panic. Todd’s arms were tied together, but he rolled over to look at the other half of the room. Dirk was lying with his back to Todd.   
“Dirk.”  
“Dirk!”  
“Dirk?”  
Dirk lay motionless, his back giving no sign of movement, no sign of breath. Nothing. Todd felt his throat tighten and his stomach drop, the air in his lungs rush out. With a sudden burst of movement, he scrambled over to his friend’s side.  
“Dirk!” He clutched at Dirk’s shoulder with his bound hands, desperately rolling him onto his back. Todd tore at the duct tape around his wrists, shifting his arms so he could search his face and chest for signs of life.   
“Dirk?” The tears were starting to fall from his eyes, dripping onto Dirk’s bright yellow jacket. “Dirk, don’t do this, please. I need you, you can’t leave me. You can’t. I never- I always- There’s things I meant to say- I can’t say now- Things I’ll never say if you- Just don’t. Don’t leave. Don’t leave.” Todd’s voice trailed off and he lowered his head to Dirk’s chest, sobbing quietly in despair.  
“Todd, this jacket is dry clean only.”  
Todd sat up as though he’d been electrocuted, his breath once again failing him. “Oh my god, you asshole.” Todd pushed himself off Dirk’s chest and threw his arms over Dirk’s head. Todd felt Dirk awkwardly raise his arms and place them cautiously on his shoulders.  
“You asshole.”  
“I’m not quite sure why I’m the arsehole here, Todd.”  
“I thought you were dead.”  
“Well that’s hardly my fault now is it?”  
Todd laughed and pushed himself off Dirk. Dirk pulled the duct tape of Todd’s wrists, and they sat up cautiously.  
“Where are we?” Dirk asked, standing and beginning to pace around the room.  
“I was hoping you’d know.” Todd replied, leaning against the wall.  
“Why would I know? I was unconscious.”  
“So was I. You’re usually the cause of these problems.” Todd said as Dirk gently helped him from the ground.  
“That’s not very kind of you to say, Todd.”  
“And yet it is not untrue.” Todd began to move around the room. “There’s a window over here, think we can use it?”  
Dirk came to stand beside Todd, and considered the window. “Todd, is there anything odd about this window to you?”  
“No,” Todd glanced at Dirk. “What are you seeing?”  
“There’s no light coming through it.” Dirk walked up to the window and grabbed at the ledge.  
“Maybe it’s night already?” Todd suggested.  
“No, we must have been snatched in the early morning, just as we got home from that relocated school canteen. Unless we’ve been out for a very long time, which is unlikely. For that matter, where is the light coming from?”   
Todd glanced around. There wasn’t a light globe on the ceiling, and the light didn’t seem to have a fixed source, and instead it suffused the room with an odd greyish glow. “I… don’t know?”  
“Exactly! And how did we get here anyway? I don’t remember getting attacked or anything, do you?”  
“No, we were at the motel. I remember getting into bed and everything.”  
“And thus I propose a theory. This isn’t real. We are, in fact, safe in our motel room and sound asleep.”  
“You’re saying this is a dream?”  
“Yeah.”  
“Oh, fantastic.”  
“What?”  
“Even the version of you that’s in my dreams is a million times smarter than me.”  
“But- But this is my dream. You were talking, and having… feelings and... Stuff. Real world Todd doesn’t… feel that way about me, therefore my unconscious conjured a version of Todd that does feel that way.”  
“But- but I do. It’s Dirk that doesn’t have feelings for me.” Todd gazed at Dirk’s confused and slightly frightened face. “Look, one way or the other, this is someone’s dream, and whoever that someone is, we might as well wake them up. What if this is some kind of attack?”  
“How though? Do you know the secret to lucid dreaming?”  
“I’ve heard that if you knock yourself out in the dream, you wake up in reality. But how? This room is empty.”  
“We could run at the wall? That’d put us out cold.”  
“Can you do that?”  
“Sure! I used to do it all of the time at the- I can do it.”  
Todd gave Dirk a worried look. They hadn’t ever really talked about Blackwing. “Well I can’t.”  
“That’s OK, it’s my dream after all.”  
“OK but what if it isn’t? What if this is my dream? I need to wake up too Dirk.”  
Dirk bit his lip, glancing away from Todd’s face, “I could- no, it’s too risky, it could hurt you.”  
“What is it Dirk? Anything could help us.”  
“I could throw you against the wall. It would knock you out, probably, but- But I don’t want to hurt you Todd.”  
Todd took a deep breath, and looked into Dirk’s eyes. “But I’m not real, Dirk.”  
“But I thought you said-”  
“It’s me that doesn’t know I’m not real. I’ll just get scared if you leave me here alone, or, the part of you that’s me will.”  
Dirk shook his head. “You’re confusing me, Todd.”  
Todd put his hand on Dirk’s cheek. “It’ll be OK Dirk, I promise.”  
Dirk closed his eyes and took a calming breath. “OK.”  
“OK, OK good. Um, you could- you could grab my shirt and slam me against the wall. OK? Dirk, look at me. OK?”  
Dirk was pale, and greenish in the strange light. He nodded sharply, lips pressed tight together.  
“Dirk, look at me. I trust you.”  
“OK. I’m going to do it now, OK?”  
“OK.” Suddenly Dirk was moving. He grabbed Todd’s shirt, and closed his eyes tight, before slamming him backwards into the wall. Pain exploded at the back of his skull.   
Everything went black.

 

Todd awoke with a jerk. He sat up in his hard motel bed and looked across the gap at Dirk. But rather than sleeping peacefully as Todd had hoped, a frow was etched deep into his friend's forehead, his breathing was sharp and ragged and he was- crying? Why was he crying? As Todd looked on in confusion and fear, Dirk woke up. Breathing hard, he put a hand on his chest, and gasped like a drowning man. Tear stand eyes met Todd’s, and Dirk launched himself across to Todd’s bed.  
“I had- I had an awful, awful dream. You were- we were in this basement, and I-”  
“I had the exact same dream!”  
“But you, but you said all those things. Whilst I was unconscious. We must have had similar versions of the same-”  
“Dirk, I said those things. And I meant them. I don’t know what I’d do without you, I barely function when you’re hurt and I-” Todd took a deep calming breath, “and I love you Dirk. I have for- for ages now.”  
“But you- I don’t- how.”  
“Do you mind if I kiss you now?”  
“Yes- I mean no- I mean, please do.”  
Todd took Dirk by the front of his colourful pyjamas, Dirk’s hands awkwardly found their place at Todd’s waist, and slowly, carefully, and at long last, they kissed.

**Author's Note:**

> I swear this was supposed to be fluff, honestly. Then it got all angsty, and then the angst snowballed and now we're left with this.


End file.
